América is embarrassed by her family’s poverty. She knows that her mother wants to feed her the best food possible, but she also knows that it won’t be as good as what the other kids at school get. She is ashamed of her mother’s Chinese accent and the way she cooks. Her friends make fun of her for it, and América feels out of place in their home because she doesn’t know how to cook like this.
She is humiliated when her mother makes a scene at the dinner table. The other kids’ parents are shocked by how loud and brash América’s mom is, but América has learned to ignore such behavior at home because it’s normal for them. She is touched by her mother’s efforts to make a special meal. She realizes that even though they don’t have much money, they do have each other—and that’s really all that matters. It brings América closer to her mother because now she understands what it was like for her mom growing up poor in China and why she works so hard today without complaining about how hard things are now since it’s better than what she had growing up there too!
